Hush — Anne Stone

A family is haunted by suffering, loss and pain in this poetic novel about the violence of patriarchy and possibilities of resistance in the lower townships of Anglo-Québec. Roses De'ath lives and works at the grungy local hotel in De'ath Sound, a town named for her mother -- a continually hovering presence who has recently checked herself out of a sanitarium and is suffering a gradual loss of memory. The other inhabitants of De'ath Sound include August, Roses' stepfather and sometime lover; Loralie, the local prostitute, whose existence in this place is a failure to exist in any other place; Bat, a young man drawn into the incestuous loop of Roses' family; and Roses' biological father, the old man Potter -- outcast because of his scaly bird leg. Driven to the unnerving reaches of language, informed by the fluidity of time and caprices of memory, rather than a linear plot, this rich novel exists at the intersection of the body, language and self. Anne Stone has created a wrenching portrait of the murky vision and dulled sense that is the price paid for secrets and deceptions, and the exhausting effort of burying tremendous pain throughout generations.